Pokemon Go: Scrub Chronicles
by Cepel
Summary: The not-so epic chronicling of a pokemon master in training as he builds an army of pokemon to take over the gym in front of his house in the honor of team Instinct. Complete with expletives, missed encounters, and general inane rantings of a typical scrub.
1. Starter Hunting

**So, this is purely experimental and more or less a journal of my pokemon Go adventures out in the real world. I've taken quite a bit more time going to the park and other nests to build up my army of pokes and farm the absolute shit out of stardust and the like. This will include pretty standard hunts, as well as notable encounters and experiences.**

 **Hopefully I don't get killed out there. Obviously, this isn't going to have an M rating because let's face it, I'm not going to be going out and fighting shady guys to the death. This is real srs business. My rise to awesome will happen gradually, but it will happen. This I assure you.**

 **I live in California.**

* * *

Trainer level: 12.

Team: Instinct

Strongest CP: 505 Aerodactyl

Status: Building up the Instinct Army.

* * *

Chronicle Entry #1: July 21, 2016, Hollenbeck Park; Bulbasaur nesting grounds in the hood of East LA

This phone is ass. This LG optimus whatever the hell it is has let me down. Constant gps outages and screwups, among other issues playing POGO. It has sufficiently pissed me off at this point. If it had hands, I'd let it attend my funeral so it could let me down one last time.

I mean, it might have something to do with the phone having been flung over 15 feet into the middle of the street while my bike decided to crap out on me as I was hauling ass, but I don't know. This phone has been through some stuff, but now it's GARBAGE.

So it's 7:00pm and I am going to catch me some bulbasaurs because I want a Venosaur that can beat some Vaporeon ass. And when trading goes live… ho, ho.

Just you wait, Valor and Mystic heathens. You own the gym in front of my house, but I will take it and beat your face into the dirt.

* * *

Alright, it's 7:20pm and I bought a new phone. Went straight to the store, paid for my stuff, and that's that. Look, I'm an adult, I'm not part of this system. I'll throw it on the ground. Don't tempt me.

As a side note, it's a brick, but a really nice brick. No connection issues and it's nice and sleek and-

NO GYROSCOPE?!

GOD DAMMIT FUCK ASS SHIT.

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Chronicle Entry #2: July 22, 2016, La Brea Tar Pits; reported Charmander nesting grounds

Going to the La Brea tar pits today for some charmander hunting goodness because I need me a charizard that can melt Valor and Mystic face off. Yesterday was a pokemon bust, considering my phone was garbage and by that time it had already gotten dark.

That bulbasaur nest in my local park? It gets shady as hell in the night. Bodies have been dumped there before. I carry a knife around with me just in case but you know, I'd rather not use it. Just living in bad areas things, I guess.

Regardless, it's La brea time. For all of you that have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, search it up, it's a national landmark or something. Mammoths died in there and stuff. But I don't care about mammoths, I want me some charizards.

Holy shit, someone ever ask what's a good example of a racially and socially divided city, Los Angeles is a good place to start. One street it's hood and crappy apartment complexes, and the next it's permit enforced parking, joggers, nice condos, and electronic key locks with cameras.

Not paying for parking, fuck that. Park in the crappier part of town it is. Car sucks so no one is going to steal it, we are good.

Here at La Brea tar pits and man, it smells like shit. Granted, the smell gets bearable the longer you stay there so it's alright. There's a ton of people nerding out, all on POGO. Guys, kids, adults, and surprisingly girls. Wait but aren't they just guys in disguise?

No, fool. The laws of the internet do not apply here. This is real life, You'd know if you went outside for once.

Hot damn. Four charmander spawns straight out of the gate? Oh baby, a quad. Charmander spawns continued for a good while, and the pokestops in the area kept my pokeball stock healthy. As I'm walking in the park, there's this really pretty girl walking in the same direction. Brunette, nice figure. Non grating voice. I put on my Casanova and walk up to her, asking her what team she is.

So she's a mystic. Alright… acceptable losses. They don't own the gym in front of my house. That doesn't fester an insatiable desire to utterly destroy them for the small, proud glory of Instant at all. I ask her about all the good charmander spawns despite having caught most of them, to which she directs me with a smile.

Ah, POGO players really are nice. Unless they're Valor.

And now jimmies are rustled.

 _Good._

Anyway, I'm chatting the girl up innocently when an arcanine spawns. On the other side of the park. Girl looks at me, I look at girl.

Some things are just more important.

I bolt over to the other side of the park, trying desperately to find which way is north because my sense of direction is worse than the average overwatch teammate.

Or Genji mains.

Fighting tooth and nail, armed with razzberries and curving my throws like a professional baseball player, I finally catch this stubborn arcanine, only to see cute girl gone.

Saddened, I check the CP of the pokemon, hoping for a level high enough to renounce a potential date and… CP 535.

…

Alright. Just need to go find the nearest tall building and escort myself off the edge. Preferably in front of a bus.

I never did see her again.

Trounced in despair and wallowing in misery, I slump along the park, catching charmanders but not caring. Woe is me, however will I recover from this devastating blow of-

HOLY FUCKNUGGETS THAT'S A JOLTEON. WORTH.

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Chronicle Entry #3: July 23, 2016, Hollenbeck Park again; near sunset

My pokeball stock is depleted severely from the tar pits yesterday. Time to go to the park to restock. I'd play overwatch, but I've developed a form of PTSD as a result of teammates with the playing ability and tactical reasoning of a baboon. I'd rather not lose brain cells to idiocy, that's politics' job.

Oh my god, it's like a hundred degrees and there's a fire out. The sun is red and smoke is in the sky like this is dark souls. Good day for pokemon hunting, if I do say so myself. Ashen lungs don't stop a true pokemon master, am I right?

Except the heat. I can't strip in public. Wait for the sun to go down, ye.

I'm following my Instincts, get it? Hah, hah. Good one, you clever little bastard you. Can you feel the cringe? Don't worry, people have already informed me that suicide is a valid stress reliever. Take knife, apply vertically to forearm. Results may vary.

Back at the park, farming pokestops and bulbasaurs, I'm sitting on the bridge when this really shady looking guy in a wife-beater starts walking toward the collection of kids and people congregated at the lures near the lake.

Dude has a hammer. Home depot heavy duty hammer. Now, I don't know about you, but there isn't any home improvement options in the middle of a park. This man carrying a half empty coke bottle in his hand. That's how I know I can't trust him. I carefully maneuver myself out of there while cautiously fingering the knife in my pocket. Pokemon trainers gotta stay safe, man.

It's dark, shady people are coming out of the woodworks, and I'm alone and slightly sweaty. No cute girls to be seen either. Time to call it a day. Six bulbasaurs and 4 growlithes. Pretty bad for a 50min-1hr haul. I'm tired of fucking dudous, I swear that zubats and pidgeys are less common than these things. GO AWAY.

Walking back, my eggs begin to hatch. Watching with excitement, I eagerly await the birth of my new pokemon, wishing I could peel off the egg shell myself to find a beautiful… geodude staring back at me.

I'm sure there's a discard function _somewhere_ around here.

* * *

 **Entry one complete. Whether anyone will read this is debatable. I'm not expecting anyone to really care, but here it is if you want to read it. Entries might get more detailed when I go to pokemon socials and events. Might update TTH tomorrow or today. Depends how I feel.**


	2. Spark Dabs

Trainer level: 15

Team: Instinct

Entry #4: South Gate Park July 27, 2016

So I heard there's a Scyther nest here. Pretty good stuff. I want me a Scizor because Scizor were the complete shit back in gen 2. Double fire weakness is pretty bad with all the Flareons and Arcanines running around but at least I'll have a fucking SCIZOR.

Holy shit there's a ton of people and this park is gigantic. I remember coming here every year to see firework shows but since then they added a ton of new shit(and fences, fuck). Immediately upon checking pokevision, I see like 6-7 scyther spawns around the park.

No big deal right? Well, this park is bloody enormous and takes a good ten minutes to walk across at a brisk pace. There's like a hundred people jogging out and many more playing POGO in the middle of the park. I've never seen so many active people before, shit is a miracle.

Plenty of Eevees be spawning, so I catch them for candies to eventually get a vapelord to absolutely beat that Arcanine ass. Mind you, I've never caught an Eevee before this, so it was awesome seeing the little brown things pop up everywhere. Scythers are coming out the woodworks at 500-700 CPs, so that's pretty damn rad.

Then a Charizard spawns. Oh HELL NO.

I hop on pokevision, check where it is, use advanced mathematics, tap into my collective knowledge of astronomy, plead to Jaysus, and finally find my direction and where I am in the park. Alright, the Charizard is south. Let's ride.

Charizard is in a golf course that closed about two hours ago. Right in the fucking middle. My proximity ring is right outside. RIGHT OUTSIDE. FUCK ME.

Steaming pile of horseshit.

Charizard despawns so it's back to hunting down Scyther while hitting up pokestops in the parking lots. Eventually, my feet start to hurt and I head over to a little water fountain with a congregation of people there. The fountain is a gym.

It's owned by Valor scum.

I then proceed to routinely beat that ass until I've gotten the gym prestige all the way down, erected Instinct banners, and immediately hit the defender bonus button. Gotta get them pokecoins yo.

And since no one in the vicinity is Instinct, I get taken down pretty quick. It's a sad life, really. But no matter, for I shall beat down those with righteous fury and furious anger.

And mystic scum keep sniping the gym when I bring it down. Cowards. This continues to happen like 6-7 times. I'm already half way to level 16 in the span of about 30 minutes. Eventually I get tired of this sniping garbage so I cross the park in search of more green bugs and fuzzy brown foxes.

Two hours into the stroll and I've caught about fifteen Scyther and like seven Eevee. Also, what is it with these blasted Pidgeys thinking they're special? Breaking out of pokeballs on great throws and running away? Like man, you're stardust fodder, why you think you special?

Stupid Pidgeys.

Crossing back to hit up a pokestop, the radar updates.

Snorlax. Close by. My heart rate picks up, and my inner hunter comes out. This bitch is mine.

Let's do this. Sprinting across a fence and into another parking lot, a car pulls up and four guys start yelling that it's right where they are. People start sprinting in that direction, me included. I reach the car and lo and behold, there's a snorlax. Cp 753. Not bad, but I still want a Snorlax.

And guess what bloody happens? Three razzberries and 2 great balls and tubby pokemon runs away.

RUNS. A. FUCKING. WAY.

Just my luck, a pokemon who's known for being utterly garbage at doing anything besides sleeping runs away from me. This trainer avatar really needs to work on his cardio, holy shit. Even Latios didn't run away this much.

Actually, never mind. Yes that fucker did. Not as bad as Raikou in crystal. Seriously, fuck that thing. Fuck that thing to hell, Tartarus, and whatever other name for hell there is.

At this point, I'm pretty damn salty. Charizard out of reach and Snorlax running away like Usain Bolt. Some bullshit.

Now I want some Carl's Jr. I'm going to go get some Carl's Jr. Because fuck this, that's why.

At least I hatched a Pikachu.

It's cp 53.

Go ahead. Laugh you asshole.

* * *

Trainer level: 16

Team: You really should know this by now.

Chronicle #5: Weller Court, Little Tokyo. Pokemon Go meetup event. July 30, 2016

Event starts at noon, I get there at 10:30. First going to eat some noodles at Orochon then see what this event has to offer.

I fight the gyms and collect pokeballs from the stops inside the court until the noodle shop opens. 11:30 am and it finally opens, get my meal, learn how to use chopsticks and not look like an idiot, and stuff my face.

Noon arrives and sure enough, people start arriving. Vendors come out en masse to sell shirts, pins, pokemon arts and crafts, as well as hosting a smash station for people who want to pass the time. I stand in line waiting to buy an Instinct shirt and just as I get there, they run out of large shirts. No way am I getting an 2X. It'd be a dress.

So I decide to wait until they bring more.

Eventually more people arrive to the point that the entire court is full of pokemon go obsessed nerds. It's hot as shit out and I spend most of the time sitting in the shade on the second floor, getting more pokeballs. Low CP Flareon spawns and while it was exciting to see, I wasn't too thrilled at it being weaksauce. Then a fucking cp 969 Golem spawns and I catch it in one pokeball.

Regular. Pokeball. Can I walk into the Salty Spitoon now?

Regardless, cosplayers come out and I see Hildas and lots of Serenas. And a very um… _large_ Ash.

And by large, I mean the dude was barrel shaped.

There was a girl there that looked so much like Serena it was uncanny. Was kinda tempted to take a picture but she left before I could. There was a Sylveon dude though, which was cool. Some parents even dressed up their kids as trainers and I saw a toddler dressed as a Charmander.

While cute, imagine how the kid must have been when it's like 96 degrees outside.

I get pretty parched so I buy a coke in the Japanese convenience store. God damn, did the Japanese invent technology that makes their coke cans hold more liquid than normal? It never seemed to run out. Meanwhile the regular ones are gone in like three sips. Got a discount for being a POGO player, hue.

Sister and friends are starting to complain like scrubs because they're bored and don't want to sit around waiting.

I'm _getting_ my shirt. I have resolved myself to do this. RESOLVE. THAT'S ALL YOU NEED. I BELIEVE IN THE HEART OF THE CARDS.

Wait, wrong thing.

Then some Valor scum walks into the court waving around a Valor flag, rallying the troops. I want a flag too… Where are my Instincts at?

Oh, right. They're off with Spark catching Pidgeys and teaching them how to dab. Not that there's anything wrong with dabbing with team leader, but you know, I have to make it my life's work to take over gyms and place cp 10 magikarps as the defending pokemon—preferably with the name: COCKMONSTER.

Yes, I am a vulgar individual.

I regret nothing. What I did regret was waiting two hours when the shirts finally came and they still didn't have large.

Fuck it, XL will do. Shirt has the team insignia on the shoulders as well, so it looks like a uniform instead of a shirt. Pretty damn awesome. I'm going to wear it on my next pokemon hunt.

* * *

Trainer level: 16

Chronicle #6: Santa Monica Pier. July 31,2016.

Oh, yeah. Santa Monica time. Hopefully a Blastoise, Gyarados, or Lapras spawn. Or Dragonite, that'd be rad. Too bad the tracker got fucked by Niantic. That's unfortunate. There's enough fucking salt from these players that it could turn the Pacific into the second Dead Sea. Like god damn. Vocal minorities are sometimes unhealthy. They'll fix it soon, quit your inane bitching.

Filthy casuals.

On the way there though, there's so much traffic I almost thought I was stuck in India. There is literally so many damn people here. Both in the shopping district and the pier. It's happy hour and bars are full, people are cruising up and down the streets while heading to the beach.

I can tell that 80% of the people here are POGO players. There's so many people that the game kept crashing from all the radio interference. T-mobile life is sad. Moving to the aquarium, the connection is much more stable, and with about 5 pokestops right next to each other. Several pokemon spawned while I sat there with lures up; a Hitmonlee, chan, Wartortle, Machoke, various Nidorans, Nidoqueen, Golbat, Squirtle, Vulpix , Ponyta, and Clefairies.

And yes, I wore my Instinct shirt. I got at least six people asking me where I bought it. Twenty others telling me "nice shirt" and about five Valor scum booing my team choice.

I growled at them. Come at me son, you got beef I got teriyaki. BRING IT.

Lots of attractive girls. All with their parents. Rule of thumb is never to talk to girls with their parents. That's a bad idea. Just focus on pokemon.

Two hours later and I run into a group of friends that live in my building. I had no idea they came here too, so I hang with them back at the pokestops, waiting for something interesting. A dragonite spawns way back in Santa Monica Blvd, and two of them take off running. It only had like a 5 minute timer, so we doubted they would make it in time.

They say they caught it.

I also say that I'm wizard. I know these guys. And these guys are _full of SHIT._ No fucking Dragonite. Yeah, that's right, shut your lying face.

Thirty minutes later and it's 12:30 am when suddenly a Dragonite spawns off the beach.

I shit you not, the pier _emptied_.

500+ people start running over to the beach like crazy, rabid mad men tripping over sand and each other to get to the thing. It's way out near Muscle Beach, but we don't care. We run like our lives depend on it.

It's dark as hell and all you can see is the light of phones and constant screams of excitement. Eventually we reach it and it appears. People are agonizing, others saddened by it running away, and others cheering after catching it.

Hollers of congratulations break out and I finally catch mine with only 4 pokeballs left in my bag. CP 966 with dragonbreath and dragon pulse. FUCK YES. People are shouting, jumping in joy and hugging each other after it. Never have I seen complete strangers do this before. It looked like a party on the beach, with people of all ages and ethnicities participating.

The experience of seeing over five hundred people rush over in a craze was well worth it, even for those that didn't catch it. The sight was just so overwhelmingly positive that it's honestly astounding that one little phone app could change so much. At that moment it was everything we dreamed of back when we were kids.

It was amazing.

Content with my Dragonite, I call it a night and head back home.

Parking was only 6$ too.

* * *

 **I said I'd upload this after updating TTH.**

 **I lied.**

 **Tee. Hee.**


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